Mr. Mercedes

A Novel

In a mega-stakes, high-suspense race against time, three of the most unlikely and winning heroes Stephen King has ever created try to stop a lone killer from blowing up thousands. In the frigid pre-dawn hours, in a distressed Midwestern city, hundreds of desperate unemployed folks are lined up for a spot at a job fair. Without warning, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging again. Eight people are killed; fifteen are wounded. The killer escapes. In another part of town, months later, a retired cop named Bill Hodges is still haunted by the unsolved crime. When he gets a crazed letter from someone who self-identifies as the "perk" and threatens an even more diabolical attack, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, hell-bent on preventing another tragedy. Brady Hartfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. He loved the feel of death under...

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A thrilling book about a suicidal detective pursuing a psychopathic mass murder, Stephen King tries to make his first realistic suspense crime drama story. A retired cop, Bill Hodges, has nothing to live for but finally, finds a purpose when he receives a letter from the supposed killer taunting him. Bradley Hartsfesid, the terrorist, works two dead end jobs and lives with his alcoholic mother, with a murky past we see his frustrations in this dual narrative novel. This is a race against time book, but personally, I didn't think the book was well put together, it was quite typical and cliche.
- @Florence of the Teen Review Board of the Hamilton Public Library

King's thriller/police procedural, while outside his usual horror/fantasy niche, doesn't feel forced or awkward. That's because, above all, he's a master plotter and a magician with the machineries of suspense writing. Fans will find his usual pop cultural and political mini-sermons here and there, which can sometimes seem clunky and out of place, but they're few and far between, and don't hinder an otherwise well-wrought express train of a thriller.

While the plot is, in fact, quite predictable, I (as a part of today's youth) believe King did a great job at portraying Jerome. Actually, about half of the kids I know act just like Jerome. And while the way Hodges is like is cliche, it's believable and, I'm sure, relatable to some. The way he added in Brady's perspective was new. I had never seen any author add in the bad guy's perspective before. The plot was flowing, easy to follow and it jumped in quickly. Plus nothing that happened seemed improbable, as most authors tend to do. For example, when Holly whacked Brady over the head with the Happy Slapper. Holly just hit Brady just enough, and when Jerome said stop, she stopped and got to the matter at hand. Most authors would have had Holly keep hitting Brady out of rage, then Jerome would have grabbed her shoulders and ripped the Slapper out of her hands yelling at her or something equally as melodramtic. And lastly, all the detail that was piled on wasn't excessive, but to the extent to where it was like a movie in my mind. While it may not be as great as The Shining or The Dark Tower series (my favorite) it was certainly a wonderful read.

I think King is showing his age with this book. His characterization of Jerome (a 17 year old boy) is especially off the mark - nowhere near any semblance of today's youth, no matter how tech-savvy or intelligent they are. This character is also African-American and comes very close to tripping over a stereotypical portrait of an upper-class African-American family. It's really almost clichéd.
Beyond that, it seems to me that King is playing on either his fantasies or just the generalized fantasies of retired, white men with this novel. The chance to solve a big mystery and instantly fall into bed with a woman 20 years younger should really get that sub-culture's juices going. For me, it was SO lame.
That said, the book is all plot and moves along quickly, with no challenging moments to speak of.

Enjoyable read, perfect for a day at the beach or for a long plane ride. The characters were likable (at least the good guys were) and had me cheering for them. The detective though was pretty cliché: older, overweight, divorced, self-destructive....

Stephen King might be better known as a horror writer, but he's no slouch when it comes to crime fiction, either. In this trilogy opener (followed by Finders Keepers and the recently published End of Watch), an unhappy retired detective is given a reason to live by the very killer he was never able to capture. Bored by his own inactivity, the killer threatens to do even worse in a crazed letter, and a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, played out in American suburbia, quickly ensues. The 2015 winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Mr. Mercedes was also shortlisted for the Gold Dagger Award in that same year.

The book gives it up from the get go. From then on we're just following both main characters in a game of cat and mouse. A lot of filler. Not very exiting. We already know that the end will be like the beginning of the book, except the two heroes will save the day. A lot of tension for nothing. The book drags on till we'd wish that (and he had plenty of time to do it) the guy'd just push the damn button. All in all the book is rather weak, missing something that it doesn't deliver.

Stephen King does know how to tell a story! I enjoyed this book (I'm more of a thriller/suspense fan than horror which probably helped). The story line is fairly simple, what I found most interesting was the trio of Bill, Jerome, and Holly. The way he brought this group of very different individuals together to basically form a team was fascinating. I'm curious to see how he develops this in the next two volumes.

Summary

Bill Hodges is a memorable character in this novel: overweight but smart and likeable, he refuses to give up on an unsolved case involving a mass murderer. But it's Holly who really steals the show at the end: reclusive but courageous and computer saavy, it is she who incapacitates the killer.